here's jason brooks with kcbs and cbsmoneywatch.com. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, grace. good morning, elizabeth. some decent news for the job market for a change. first time weekly unemployment claims dropped by 22,000 last week to 405,000 the lowest in three months. need to see that get below 400,000 but after the past two disappointing reports for may and june, we'll take any decent news on the job market. absolutely critical to getting the economy going in the right direction because that will fuel consumer spending. as a result of the weak job market, we didn't see a whole lot of consumer spending in june. retail sales increased by only .1%. and that was mainly a function of higher automobile sales. you factor those out, sales are flat. and in the drop in oil prices, as a result gasoline prices, really socked it to gas stations. sales dropped 1.3%. and that drop in oil prices also impacted wholesale side inflation that fell about .4% last month. and that will probably result in a drop for consumer inflation, as well. th